


Things Change

by Charlie9646



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Acceptance, I blame Jessi, Muggleborns in Slytherin, Other, Wheel of Doom, change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26608003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie9646/pseuds/Charlie9646
Summary: Admitting when you are wrong is the hardest thing someone can do, but it’s the right thing.Salazar Slytherin made many choices in his life, but the best he will make will be after his death.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 24
Collections: Frump’s Wheel of Doom





	Things Change

Hogwarts for as long it had existed had one rule that could never be broken—no Muggleborns were allowed in Slytherin house. It had not been broken for a thousand years; until it was. Some say change happens quickly, but true change is like the soft ticking of a clock. It’s a portrait hanging on a wall in the dungeon—watching the decades pass.

Salazar Slytherin was many things, but unintelligent was not one of them. He watched children walk down the halls, some with Muggle blood running through their veins. They would hide the fact away like the trinkets in the Room of Lost Things. Long ago he had left this place. These hallowed halls that his magic had been sunk into the very stone that made up this castle.

Looking back now with the sharpness and clarity of time; Slytherin himself could see how wrong that had been. The monsters that he had created. The worst being that of Tom Riddle. The boy with  _ his _ blood running through his veins. 

Step by step through the portraits, Salazar found his way to the room that had once been his long lost friend’s office. Now it was the office of the Headmaster of Hogwarts. Albus Dumbledore, was not who he would have chosen, but the man had done well. He had brought the school from the Victorian Era that it had been trapped in, into the light. 

The headmaster was not in the room. The other portraits slept on. 

_ Good, _ Slytherin thought. No one else needed to know what he was doing. Portraits were assumed to be simply impressions of the people they once were. Incapable of change and understanding of the world that was around them.

_ But that wasn’t true.  _

“Sorting hat,” he whispered, to not wake the other portraits. 

“Salazar,” it spoke firmly. “Your kin have caused nothing  _ but _ harm to this school. I have sat upon many of their heads over the years as they slipped deeper and deeper into madness. A once great house has become nothing, but a rotting shack. The last became more monster than man. What do you say for yourself?”

“I was wrong.”

“There is a price for undoing the magic which you placed upon me,” the sorting hat muttered. “It is a price you are willing to pay?”

“I will,” Salazar said. “And I understand.”

“It is done. Three is no going back, no undoing it because you regret it. I shall now consider anyone capable to become a member of your house, whether or not you would consider them a proper witch or wizard when  _ you _ walked these halls.”

“As it should have been in the first place,” the old man muttered, before he vanished taking his place among the other founders in the headmaster’s quarters. 

A place which he had avoided for a thousand years. A place where Salazar was welcomed and forgiven by his friends. 

And when the hat was placed upon the head of young Colin Creevy, that fall, it shouted: “It better be Slytherin.” 

The way to beat back the monsters of hatred and disdain is acceptance and love.

No one clapped as the blond boy walked to the Slytherin house table, besides one single person.

Headmaster Albus Dumbledore. 

He knew what this meant and what a glorious action it was. There was power in admitting you were wrong. Just as he himself had done so long ago. Bit by bit as the years passed and more young Muggleborns were accepted Tom Riddle lost stranglehold upon the house he used as a recruiting ground. 

inclusion is one single choice. One single action, but one single choice can change everything.

An wizard with hair the colour of silver and dressed in green smiled in his portrait: change was good. 


End file.
